Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) (11 page)

“The return is high. We can increase our fees, based on this new data. The Eos government will understand the risks posed by Xesset occupation when I hand over this additional information.”

“Very well. Monty, you’re charged with finalizing negotiations with the authorities. Aim for a complete package. We want authorization to destroy the pirates, capture the freighter, and to take out the terrorists on the planet,” Colonel Attwood said. “While we want the best price, we can’t let these aliens take control of a populated planet, if we can stop them. The probability is, if we travel anywhere near the freighter, based on Steg’s information, they’ll attack us. We’d be entitled to defend ourselves.”

Steg met with the colonel after the strategy session to determine how he and his new, as yet untried, force would assist with the proposed attacks.

“I’ve a concern, Colonel,” he said. “We’ve had these men for less than two months. They’re fit and we’ve been providing combat training. They’re equipped with exo-armor. Some are experienced; some aren’t. They all have potential. However, I’ve no idea how they’ll react in battle conditions.”

“Hmm. I’ve made the same assessment. My suggestion: we hold your unit in reserve and use it if we need to support an assault on the freighter. Later, I’m sure we can deploy your men against inexperienced rebels on Eos. We’ll have opportunities to assess your company’s abilities, after which we can better plan its future utilization.”

“Yes, sir, I agree.”

“Very well, that’s how we’ll do it. Commander Gillespie estimates we’ll be on station, ready to deal with the freighter, in fifteen days, so you have time for more training. Good luck.”

The next week passed rapidly, with training exercises taking every spare minute of each day. Steg participated in all the sessions, pushing his sergeants who, in turn, drove the men in the small mercenary company. They all tried to outdo their captain, which gave Steg an extra edge of motivation. He arranged for some of
Wasp’
s crew to build a mock-up of the freighter’s bridge in one of the empty bays using plans provided by Monty. He split his men into two groups, one attacking and one defending the mock-up. He switched their roles, again and again, until everyone was exhausted. At the end of the week, he was far more confident about the capabilities of his small force. Of course, there were no guarantees—the bridge on the freighter might be completely different or his company could be ordered to attack or defend the freighter’s engineering control room or be held in reserve and not see any action.

“What do you think, Kirby?” Steg wiped perspiration from his face.

“Very good, sir. The men are familiar with their exo-armor, and they’re learning to work together. When they’re under fire from a real enemy, they’ll either fall to pieces or perform as a unit. There’s only one way to find out.”

“You are a sad man, Sergeant, a sad man.”

“Yes, sir. I’m not paid to be happy.”

“Let’s see what happens with this venture. If we see action, and we’re successful, you’ll get a bonus.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant maintained his morose expression.

Steg understood Kirby wanted to join in the pending action, and the men in his small company reflected a similar attitude. It would be a bad news, good news situation if they were required to board the freighter. It would mean Major Fowler’s force had encountered serious opposition and possibly higher casualties than expected; however, it also would give his men an opportunity to demonstrate their readiness.

“The men have done well, Sergeant. Give them the rest of the day off,” suggested Steg. “They need a break. So do I, now I come to think of it.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant moved off to dismiss his men.

The company did not yet have a name, which Steg thought he would remedy before they saw action. He planned to arrange a company patch for the men to wear, to reinforce their identity and build morale.

Steg decided to venture to
Wasp
’s bridge to obtain an update of the starship’s status. He was anxious to discover when they would be close to the Xesset. The colonel had scheduled a readiness meeting for the following afternoon, and Steg wanted to be prepared.

Commander Gillespie was on shift. She and her bridge crew were relaxed, confident in their abilities and plans. According to their projections,
Wasp
was on course to make contact with the freighter and its escort in seventy-two hours.

“We’re ready,” confirmed the commander. “At least as ready as we can be. Monty’s been thorough, as always. I understand your data was helpful. Our primary strategy is straightforward: full stealth and when we’re in range, we attack. Of course, assuming the Xesset won’t be able to detect us.” She frowned.

“If they do?”

“We rely on Weapons. She’s been driving her team—she’s relentless—and for the last week her team’s been in war games heaven and so has she. The Xesset will have to be good. We’ll have surprise, stealth, training, plus a motivated crew.”

“The Xesset are good, I know. Monty’s tracking the freighter?”

“Yes, he’s using way station traffic messages to monitor its progress. Astro has confirmed our ETA against the freighter’s projected course, given our current speed. Her estimate is plus or minus five hours, and we’ll refine details tomorrow morning. I hear you’ve been training hard?”

“Setting an example for my company,” Steg acknowledged. He left the bridge and headed to the colonel’s office. There was no one in attendance, not even the duty sergeant. He decided to call it a night; he needed a shower and a good night’s sleep.

Steg placed Monty’s croacher-like construct in a drawer of the smaller of the two steel cabinets. He’d explained to the alien he didn’t plan to be available three shifts a day unless they were in action against an enemy. He’d also deferred the alien’s proposed communication implant; in his opinion, it was too invasive. He spent longer than usual enjoying the shower. He needed the heat to ease his muscle aches from training. He closed the fresher door and dried himself.

Now that’s odd
, he thought
.
He was certain he’d left the main lights in his cabin switched on before taking his shower. He turned off the fresher light and felt his way across to his bed. When he sat on the edge of the mattress, he heard a stifled giggle. Intrigued, he felt around the bed and encountered a body under the bed covers. It wriggled. Steg turned on the small bedside light.

A Fain peered up at him, her eyes sparkling. It was Tessa, from the starship’s medical unit. Steg lifted the bed covers—she was naked. He lifted the bed covers higher and found a second Fain; she too was unclothed. He recognized her; she was Sara, also from the medical unit.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Are you expecting me to be ambushed again?”

“No,” Tessa said, giggling. “We decided to ambush you. Well, we wanted quiet time. All the mercenaries are preparing for action, and they tend to get over-excited. We’ll have some tired Fain, by tomorrow. We’re sheltering. If you don’t mind?”

“Of course not.” Steg edged himself into the bed. “If you promise no one’s coming after me with a scalpel. Move over.” There was a flurry of movement as the two Fain made room. “I do have a question, though. I’ve avoided getting one of Monty’s implants—what about you? Does he distribute his communication implants to Fain as well as to the officers?”

“No,” replied Tessa. “He isn’t interested in Fain. I don’t think he understands us, our abilities, our culture, or our potential. He hasn’t grasped quite what we are, and he thinks we’re not a factor in his machinations.”

“Good. Now, about this ambush …”

It started when he woke. His eyes were still closed. He stretched; somehow avoiding the collection of warm bodies snuggled around him. He was in a half-awake, half-asleep state, when the voices began. They were not real voices; rather they were streams of data, somehow vocalized or at least presented in a form that he could comprehend. He identified natural signals, planets chiming their measures of heat and cold, stars singing their siren songs as their gravitational pull drew in wandering meteors, and deep space navigation buoys and other waypoint markers transmitting their monotones, with voluminous streams of data, some coherent, some incoherent, some a mix of the two. Steg struggled to make sense of this dream state.

He focused on a stream of data that seemed to be heading straight towards him. It contained a series of data packets, which, he suspected, he could intercept and unravel. He reached for the closest packet and flowed with it as he unassembled its structure and contents. It was, Steg thought, like holding a tiny bird and feeling its heartbeat, slightly accelerated, not with fear but with an urgency to complete its errand. The data contained a detailed message from the planetary authorities on Eo 3d, and it was addressed to Monty. He copied the contents and released the struggling package to complete its programmed journey. He read the message.

And sat up, wide-awake. He read the message again. It was not from Eo 3d. The subject matter was Eo 3d. The data source was one of the Xesset pirate ships. He cursed.

A Fain peered up at him. “Are you always this noisy when you wake up in the morning?” she asked.

It was Stacia, the scalpel-wielding Fain. Steg did not hide his surprise. “What? How did you get in here?”

“The others were needed in medical. There was a fight earlier this morning—no, none of your lot. A small number of broken bones, plus lots of cuts and bruises. Some of the cuts needed stitching. It was the end of my shift, so Finch and I swapped with Tessa and Sara.” A second Fain, whom he did not recognize but assumed she was Finch, raised her head, her eyes barely open, and said, “Shhh.” She closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.

“Stacia, I’ve an urgent matter to discuss with Colonel Attwood.” Steg kept his voice low. He started to get out of the bed.

The Fain held his arm, blocking his movement. “Oh, you wouldn’t know,” she said. “He’s with the
Charion
priestess, him and three of his officers and some of his men. She has a prayer room way in back of
Wasp
. They’ll still be under the influence of the soporific the priestess uses. You won’t get any sense out of them until this afternoon.”

Steg cursed silently.
Charion
was one of the religions followed by the Siccan War Merchants—a mainstay of the
Charion
philosophy assured reincarnation for any of her followers who fell in battle. Attwood had not mentioned the religion, and Steg had not expected the commander of the mercenaries to be out of action for most of a day preceding their contact with the Xesset starships. He cursed again. Stacia stroked his arm. Steg asked, “What about Gillespie and her people?”

“They’re on duty, always ready for action. Don’t expect to have any coherent conversation with Attwood, Fowler, or their two top sergeants until later today.” Stacia must have recognized the concern in Steg’s expression. “Is there anything we can do?”

“No, it’s something I need to pursue, at least for now. I’ll let you know if I need your help. Go back to sleep.”

Before he left his cabin, Steg comlinked with Sergeant Kirby. He gave the sergeant instructions to assemble their company in the briefing room that they had taken over as a war room. It was next to a command deck containing a fully functional copy of
Wasp’s
bridge. He gave Kirby an hour to ready the men; he needed breakfast before his day deteriorated any further. He left Monty’s communication insect in its steel drawer.

Steg sat alone while he was eating his meal, reflecting on his detection of data flows. He realized, with a sudden shock, more of his missing memories were now complete. The therapist on the hospital ship had said he needed to relax, to stop stressing, and he assumed his night with the two Fain had achieved the needed relaxation. He smiled to himself, distracted for a moment. He focused back on his current situation. The alien cephalopod was in communication with the Xesset, he was certain. The message he had intercepted was part of an ongoing exchange, and the contents indicated the conversation had been conducted for some time.

He was trying to pursue multiple strands of thought, all elusive, and he was getting nowhere. First, he wanted to return to Homeworld. It now was obvious to him that he had somehow triggered a time shift as he entered the portal after the Lady Gaetja had, in a fit of revenge, attacked him. The blast from her weapon had hit and burned across his head. He remembered the blinding pain and not much else as he stepped into the portal on Homeworld, his home planet.

His problem was simple to state and difficult to resolve—he needed to access a portal to attempt his return. The difficulty was that most portals—a hundred or so—were located on Imperial Fleet starships, mainly large destroyers and even larger dreadnoughts. Other portals, perhaps no more than ten or so, if his recollection was correct, were located on planets; one was on Homeworld—others he knew of were on Jochum, Jochum II, and Aluta. To compound the problem, he was a fugitive, unlikely to obtain access to any portal except those on Homeworld or in the Jochum system—both distant from his current location.

The second strand was the imminent confrontation with Xesset starships and the apparent betrayal by Monty. Survival of his men—of the starship, its crew, and the marine force—would depend on him.

Steg reached out, attempting to access the computers in the alien’s watery world. He sensed
Wasp’s
systems; they were within reach, his awareness of them forming in the back of his mind. To his disappointment, his access to Monty’s systems was limited and he reached only as far as the alien’s external communication system. He re-programmed the comms equipment to hide messages until he released them, whether Monty was the sender or recipient. It was a temporary measure that he could keep in place until he determined how to respond to the danger posed by the alien. When anyone ran diagnostics on the system, it would appear to be a program glitch combined with hardware failure, which in theory would take days to repair.